Few elections have seen as many bizarre undulations in its final days as the special election in upstate New York to replace former Republican Congressman John McHugh.
It began as a fairly pedestrian and short campaign cycle, where Republican legislator DeDe Scozzafava was expected to prevail over Democratic attorney Bill Owens, a political rookie. Democrats pinned their hopes on a potential spoiler in little-known accountant Doug Hoffman, appointed as a protest gesture by the Conservative Party (the Conservative Party typically, although not always, cross-endorses the GOP nominee).
Hoffman, in short order, became a cause celebre for the American right-wing. It started with fringe characters on the right-wing of the Republican Party. Then, as polls showed him registering in the high teens, he began to earn some endorsements from high-profile Republicans.
Then, in the final weeks of the campaign, it became apparent that whole segments of the Republican Party were forsaking their nominee in favor of the third-party insurgent, who better met their standards of ideological purity.
That led us to this past weekend, which absolutely defied belief. It began with the stunning announcement that the GOP nominee, DeDe Scozzafava, was dropping out of the race. Then came yesterday's jaw-dropper, when the woman who had been the Republican Party's nominee for Congress just 24 hours earlier announced that she was endorsing the Democratic nominee, Bill Owens, as the person who was the best suited to represent the 23rd district in Congress.
Amid this tumultuous backdrop (and the news Markos broke this morning that Scozzafava, after all this, may be contemplating a party switch), this final day of the campaign seems...well...almost tame by comparison. Bill Owens enjoyed a White House assist at a final GOTV rally today when Vice-President Joe Biden came to town. Hoffman, meanwhile, gets a little celebrity accompaniment when country singer John Rich (he of "Raising McCain" fame) headlines a rally.
Meanwhile, the ads and robocalls continue. In an interesting twist, the hard-right, anti-abortion, anti-gay Hoffman gets robocalling assistance from, of all people, Rudy Giuliani.
This, of course, means two things: 1) Rudy Giuliani is not done with elective politics yet (whether it is a gubernatorial bid in 2010 or something bigger); and 2) Rudy Giuliani stumping for someone like Hoffman means that Rudy has little or no soul, given that, ideologically, he is probably a heckuva lot closer to Owens and Scozzafava than the teabagger set.
A PPP poll released late Sunday night gave Hoffman a 51-34 lead, but that was largely conducted before the Scozzafava endorsement of Owens Sunday afternoon. PPP also pointed out on their Twitter site that they were seeing a very different electorate (much more conservative) than either Siena or Research 2000 did last week. While other pollsters had Obama's job approval in the 50% range or better, PPP had it at 39%. Siena followed early this morning, and has it much closer: Hoffman leading 41-36-6, with one-sixth of the electorate still undecided.
Five Thirty Eight's Nate Silver, for what it is worth, offers a very astute warning about trying to predict the outcome of tomorrow's race:
Let me declaim that the utterly fascinating special election in NY-23 has become nearly impossible to forecast. Special elections, with their low turnout, are intrinsically pretty difficult to predict. So are multi-candidate races. And certainly, races where there are substantial late-breaking developments -- such as the Republican candidate dropping out four days before the election and endorsing her Democratic rival -- present especial difficulties for forecasters. Here, you have all three of those circumstances, producing a perfect storm of uncertainty.
Uncertainty has been the hallmark of this very peculiar election. It only stands to reason that its outcome also remains uncertain.